The Covert War Against Rock-book review

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Book: The Covert War Against Rock by Author Alex Constantine- reviewed by Jeanette Foresta

The Covert War Against Rock is a mind blower!
Originally Written: Jul 29 2000
(Updated Oct 26 2000)
(Updated July 10th 2000)

Non-fiction, Pub. in March of 2000. This book is about the untimely deaths of Jim Morrison, Tupac Shakur, Michael Hutchence, Brian Jones, John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Phillip David Ochs, Peter Tosh and The Notorious B.I.G.
The published date is 2000 so it was brand new when I bought it.
The beginning of the book can be old hash for the informed crowd on the history of the not so nice American system. An example is the "The Great Heroin Coup," or “Deep Throat," bantered about in few newspapers at a time, during the Nixon Watergate investigation.
According to this book, it reads like a movie script. I knew about some of the content but, there was a lot I did not knnow?

In the beginning of the book there are all the familiar names like Washington attorney Robert Bennett, then director of Mullen and associates, the firm that founded the Free Cuba Committee, a front that claimed Lee Harvey Oswald as a member. White House plumber E.Howard Hunt, Former CIA official Richard Ober. The book says that Bennet and Ober both ran covert assassination programs, as time moves on we will see.

There is a chapter called ‘Who killed the Kennedy’s? (and Sal Mineo?) This is some story! Hollywood stars took refuge and rumors threatened to ruin our memory of Sal Mineo but the truth is even more disturbing!

According to the book, Cathy Scott a reporter for the Las Vegas Sun :
‘No one followed the mortuary van from the hospital to the morgue. The Van drove three blocks without being noticed. An autopsy was done the evening of Friday the 13th 1996. Without giving it all away,
Cathy Scott is the only one with this report.

A note from me:
Tupac Shakur’s fate was already dealt a deck of mystery, murder and wild cards. His mother carried him in her belly while in prison, born the son of a former Black Panther.
On November 24th, 1996 the first of the Key witnesses died a timely death leaving others to follow the same fate. Six others were to be dead before the dust settled. Biggie Smalls being one of the casualties of this silent war
.

Bob Marley ended up in the office of a doctor who he later found out was a Nazi Doctor and during WWll was Mengele’s protégé. Boy, did he Wail after he learned that tidbit. Shaking my head while reading this book.
Read this book to find out what Henry Kissinger had to do with herb man Peter Tosh-a preacher’s son.

Project Walrus, and Holden Caulfield's warm gun:

John Lennon’s Decota apartment was full of bugging devices. In this and many of the cases, the cover-ups prove the crimes. Look into it for yourself and come to your own conclusions. I am only here doing this review because I feel the book is outstanding.
A snippet for you.
“Chapman’s attorney Jonathan Marks punctuated the plea…by reason of insanity. The bench favored a motion from Marks to enlist three psychiatrists. The first was Mr. Milton Kline, a prestigious clinical psychiatrist, and authority on hypnosis from New York, and an esteemed consultant to the CIA on the creation of programmed killers while president of the American Society for Experimental Hypnosis, a true believer in the “Manchurian Candidate” killing concept who once boasted that he was capable of creating hypnotically driven patsy’s in three months, a mind-controlled assassin in six.

The death of Philip David Ochs:

Like in Coffins in a Cage: The Baez Contras and the death of Phil Ochs.

Fortunately, Joan and Dylan survived. Not so with Phil Ochs. There was an invigorating charge in the air back then in the early sixties. Dylan crooned out “Masters of War”, which by the way I know every word to, still. Phil Ochs anguished “Too Many Martyrs.” Together they dragged folk music away from the migrant camps into the boardroom of the Eisenhower military industrial complex.

Ochs denounced American geopolitics in “Cops of the World”

“And when we’ve butchered your sons, boys,
Have a stick of our gum boys!
We own half the world, “Oh, say can you see.”
And the name for our profits is democracy…

He was the ultimate dissident..
The comic and the beauty queen are dancing on the stage.
The raw recruits are lining up like coffins in a cage.
Oh, we’re fighting in a war we lost before the war began….”

"I'm adding this about Phil Ochs, it is not in the book. Philip David Ochs Born December 19, 1940 – April 9, 1976) was an American protest singer (or, as he preferred, a topical singer) and songwriter who was known for his sharp wit, sardonic humor, earnest humanism, political activism, insightful and alliterative lyrics, and haunting voice. He wrote hundreds of songs in the 1960s and released eight albums in his lifetime.
Ochs performed at many political events, including anti-Vietnam War and civil rights rallies, student events, and organized labor events over the course of his career, in addition to many concert appearances at such venues as New York City's Town Hall and Carnegie Hall. Politically, Ochs described himself as a "left social democrat" who became an "early revolutionary" after the protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago led to a police riot, which had a profound effect on his state of mind.
After years of prolific writing in the 1960s, Ochs's mental stability declined in the 1970s. He eventually succumbed to a number of problems including bipolar disorder and alcoholism, and took his own life in 1976…so they say."

I will leave you with the Lyrics to Master of war by Bob Dylan. This was concerning the Vietnam War.

Come you masters of war, you that build all the guns,
you that build all the planes you that build all the bombs,
you that hide behind walls
you that hide behind desk
I just want you to know I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin' but build to destroy,
you play with my world...
like it’s your little toy... you put a gun in my hand
and you hide from my eyes,
then you turn and run farther when the fast bullets fly.

I will ask you one question, is your money that good?
Will it buy you forgiveness, do you think that it should,
well I hope that you will find when your death takes its toll,
all the money you’ve made will never buy back your soul,
and I hope that you die, and your death will come soon,
I will follow your casket on a pale afternoon
and I’ll watch while you're lowered down to your death bed
and I’ll stand over your grave till I’m sure you are dead.

Dylan stopped writing political songs after the death of Phil Ochs.

Find out about the shocking death of Michael Hutchence lead singer-songwriter of the rock band INXS who died November 22nd, 1997 at the age of 37, by suicide which Paula Yates disputed and became very despondent over. They had just had a baby a few months after her divorce from Geldof in 1996 and had bitter on-going child custody fights since 1986 over their two children. Now Geldof wanted their child also. See what the autopsy report really said.
Update, Paula Yates was found dead under suspicious circumstances just two years after Michael's supposed suicide. She was found dead on September 17 2000 at age 41 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia after Michael's death everyone was left wondering why would he do this when he had a new baby for them to care for.